The Modern Papacy Since 1798

Frank Coppa explores the Papacy's reaction to this new and sceptical world. He considers the Papal response to the French Revolution itself; and to successive political events like the Napoleonic conquests, the unification of Italy and Germany, the two World Wars and the Cold War. He examines Rome's attitude to underlying shifts in ideology - to liberal Catholicism, to imperialism, nationalism, and communism: and to the modern secular age and the growing concern of the popes for the Catholic world beyond its traditional European home. The book will be necessary reading for anyone interested in the Papacy, Catholicism and, indeed, the place of Christianity and organised religion more generally, in an increasingly pluralistic and materialistic age.